Easter with the Worthens

friday Mom, Dad, the phelps, the paynes, and our family took a trip to go see our cousins and uncle lee and aunt judy in arizona. aunt judy saved amazing seats for all of us at the mesa easter pageant friday night. cousins boyd and niki and aunt judy were all apart of the pageant which made it really exciting to watch and look for the scenes that they were in. boyd played Jesus in a couple of the scenes. they all did a wonderful job. the pageant was really good and it was so nice to have something more than just eggs, baskets and chocolate as part of our easter this year. the spirit was felt there and it was helpful to me to have such a powerful visual of Christ and the events of His life. we also got to go inside the visitors center there on the temple grounds and walk through the "Reflections of Christ" exhibit. WOW! it was a room with photographs taken by an artist that happens to be friends with my cousin boyd. photographs of Christ like walking on water, on the cross, his birth, and many other scenes from His life. i loved the one of Christ walking on water and a photograph of Christ with his side/back facing the camera and he is just glowing in white...it was amazing. i can't wait for the artist to release them for purchase; they are very moving. we also got to see my other cousin, sis. ashcraft there at the temple where she is serving her mission. she seemed very happy to be there and it was fun to see her. we went to syd and david's for homemade pistachio and butterfinger ice cream...yum! david didn't like the ice cream because the worthens make theirs with pudding and the cummards don't'. i'm really bummed that i won't be at the next ice cream night when they make one batch of each and then take a vote on which is the better recipe.

saturday morning we went to wendy and lonny's house for breakfast and to celebrate boyd's 28th birthday. we had fresh fruit and cereal and yummy bagels. cort put butter on the bagels and then toasted them by placing them on a pancake skillet. i had never seen them done that way and they were delicious. after breakfast the guys all went shooting and then went to todd and courtney's to watch the unlv game, while all the girls took the kids to a nice pool in wendy's development to go swimming. we had fun just chatting and hanging out with each other. we went back to wendy's house and had six foot subs and fresh salsa. the kids colored easter eggs and then hid them in wendy's back yard for each other to find. then they got into an egg fight and there was smashed eggs all over the back yard...it was pretty gross. after getting that mess all picked up we just hung out and let the kids play.

sunday morning we headed over to courtney and todd's house for easter breakfast and for the easter egg hunt. we had all kinds of food but my favorite were the belgian waffles and this amazing buttermilk syrup. it was the best syrup i've had in my entire life. everything was so good and it was fun to be with everyone one last time before we had to leave. not only did i have a blast over the weekend, i learned lots and got some great new ideas like, the bagels, the syrup, hillary's life-size poster, real grass easter baskets, the girls necklaces, and i'll have to think of some more later. after breakfast all 25 kids went out and hunted for eggs using the super cute (real grass inside) easter baskets that courtney made for each of them. so fun! i couldn't help but think of grandma and grandpa worthen and how happy they must have felt to see us all together; to see what special people we all are, and to see how many beautiful and healthy great grandchildren they have. the saying, "all because two people fell in love" was very relevant to me in that moment. it really was priceless for me to watch them all together, i had to walk away at one moment because of the tears that were welling up. i'm so thankful to my Father in Heaven that families are forever. my cousins were so wonderful to invite us into their homes and to take the time that they did to plan activities and meals for all of us. it was so organized and really just so wonderful. i'm so glad that i was able to spend some well needed time with my cousins, to get to know them and watch them with their families; it had been a really long time and so much had changed. i have always loved and looked up to them and pretty sure that i wanted to be them at different times in my youth. they are sweet, genuine people and i love each of them very much. it was so nice to see niki again and to meet melissa for the first time; they are both such beautiful and sweet girls and i can totally see and understand why my aunt and cousins adore them they way they do. while we were there we found out that kyle and melissa are expecting their first child and i'm so excited for them. i'm grateful that my children had the chance to meet all of those cute cousins of theirs and that they could see what a special family we belong to.

http://www.reflectionsofchrist.org/